Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

President Biden wrapped up a brief visit to Israel on Wednesday. The trip was also intended to include a meeting in Amman, Jordan with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, King Abdullah of Jordan and President Sisi of Egypt. That leg of the trip was abruptly cancelled following the tragedy at the hospital in Gaza.  Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is becoming increasingly dire. According to the latest reports from the United Nations, fuel is running out and water supplies are dangerously low. Some one million people are displaced and several hundreds of thousands have fled to southern Gaza near the Egyptian border in the hopes of finding some modicum of refuge and relief.  My guest Nancy Okail is President of the Center for International Policy, a think tank in Washington, D.C. She is also an Egyptian activist and scholar and in our conversation explains some of the political considerations that are driving Egypt's response to the unfolding crisis over its border. Moments before I caught up with her, President Biden had delivered a speech in Tel Aviv in which he announced an agreement from Israel's War Cabinet for the provision of humanitarian relief into Gaza, from Egypt. We kick off discussing President Biden's speech before having a longer conversation about what the Israel-Hamas war looks like from the perspective of the Egyptian government.   

Since the early 2000s, Tobacco use has declined steadily and in some cases very sharply nearly everywhere in the world except China. According to the world health organization, Tobacco use for people 15 years or older declined globally from 34% in the year 2000 to 23% last year. But in China, tobacco use has remained relatively stable -- falling just 1%, from 27 to 26 percent in the last two decades.  A new piece of investigative journalism offers one key explanation of why China has been such an outlier to this global trend, namely the political influence of China's national tobacco monopoly.  My guest today, Jason McClure, a correspondent with The Examination, a new non profit investigative news agency focused on global health. He is one of the authors of the report detailing the ways in which the state-run China National Tobacco Corporation successfully undermined Tobacco use reduction efforts in China. How China Became Addicted to its Tobacco Monopoly" https://www.theexamination.org/articles/how-china-became-addicted-to-its-tobacco-monopoly 

The crisis in Israel and Gaza--and Southern Lebanon and the West Bank --  is unfolding rapidly. Following the Hamas attacks on Saturday, Netanyahu promised to “return fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.” Israel has already launched heavy airstrikes on Gaza and seems to be readying a ground invasion. Meanwhile, unrest in the West Bank has resulted in 11 Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers, and in Southern Lebanon Hezbollah has been trading rocket fire with Israel. Joining me to discuss this crisis is Daniel Levy, who is head of the U.S. Middle East Project and is a former peace negotiator under the governments of Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak. We kick off discussing why the Hamas attack happened when it did, the strategic logic underpinning Hamas' actions, Israel's likely response, the implications of this episode for Israeli domestic politics, and the prospect that this might devolve into a wider regional conflict.  Newsletter at GlobalDispatches.org Premium podcast episodes.     

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings are taking place in Morocco this month, and for the first time in a long time there is real momentum around enacting reforms to how these decades old institions operate. A big boost to a reform agenda came at the G-20 meeting in India in early September when President Biden backed a reform agenda to increase the World Bank's capacity to support low and middle income countries with better loans aimed at promiting sustainable development. He also announced he'd ask congress for an additional $25 billion for the World Bank.  This was significant for a number of reasons. First, it demonstrated a responsiveness to the criticism of developing world countries who have long sought better financing options for climate compliant economic development projects. Second, the US is the largest shareholder at the World Bank, so what the US president says carries a great deal of weight.  On the line to discuss some of the proposed reforms--and the many political pitfalls along the way -- is Karen Mathieson, project director at the Center for Global Development. We kick off with a discussion of why the World Bank needs reform before having a longer conversation about the proposals now on the table.     

Diego Garcia is a small Island in the dead center of the Indian Ocean that is part of the Chagos Archipelago. In the early 1970s, the United Kingdom, which controlled the Islands, leased Diego Garcia to the United States for use as a military base. However, in the process of transferring Diego Garcia to the US, the United Kingdom forcibly expelled the island's native population and that of the surrounding Chagos Archipelego.  Thousands of Chagossians were exiled from their homeland, most of whom were forced to Mauritius, which is over 2,000 kilometers away.  The forced deportation of Chagossians was a crime against humanity committed 50 years ago. But only recently has it gotten its day in court. My guest today, Philippe Sands is a famed international lawyer who has taken on the cause of righting his historic wrong. His recent book "The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile Justice and Courage" tells the story of the Chagossian exile and the effort to secure justice for Chagos islanders. We kick off our conversation with a brief history of the Island before we discuss the series of legal victories in both British courts and the International Court of Justice in the Hague that has lead to final negotiations underway to support the return of Chagosians to their homeland. 

On September 19th, Azerbaijan launched a swift military offensive against ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh, a long disputed region.  Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a bloody war over this territory following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which resulted in de-facto Armenian control over what is internationally recognized to be Azerbaijani territory. That status quo existed for nearly 30 years, until September 2020 when Azerbaijan launched a surprise military offensive routing ethnic Armenian forces. Russia brokered a ceasefire and installed Russian peacekeepers to enforce a truce. But Azerbaijan had the clear military advantage. Meanwhile Russia's invasion of Ukraine undermined its role in the region. So, Azerbaijan took the initiative and now a de-facto ethnic cleansing is underway as tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians flees their homes--and their homeland since the middle ages.  Joining me from Yerevan, Armenia to discuss this unfolding crisis is Olesya Vartanyan, Senior Analyst for the South Caucasus region at the International Crisis Group. 

Justin Trudeau dropped a bombshell before Parliament last week when he accused the government of India of assassinating a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a Sikh dissident living in British Columbia when he was gunned down by assailants outside his place of worship. Nijaar had long agitated for an independent Sikh state apparently putting him in the crosshairs of Narendra Modi’s government.  The idea that a democracy like India would carry out a hit on North American soil is a major development — and one that will complicate American foreign policy as well. Joining me to discuss this situation is Justin Ling, a Canadian journalist and author of the Bug Eyed and Shameless Substack. We kick off discussing what we know thus far about these accusations and then have a longer conversation about what this means for Canadian diplomacy and American foreign policy going forward. Get the newsletter  Listen on Spotify? Here's our premium feed

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, there was a brief moment when it seemed possible that this crisis might inspire European governments to turn away from fossil fuels. Russia was a huge supplier of natural gas to many European markets, and with those supplies suddenly cut off, there was an opportunity to replace Russian fossil fuel with clean energy.  That did not happen. In fact, just the opposite occurred. According to research by my guest today Jeff Colgan, European investments in clean energy fell precipitously following Russia's invasion of Ukraine as governments scrambled for fossil fuels. Jeff Colgan is the Richard Holbrooke Professor of Political Science at Brown University and co-author of a new report, "Letting Europe’s Energy Crisis Go to Waste: The Ukraine War’s Massive Fossil Fuel Costs Fail to Accelerate Renewables'  We kick off discussing the state of Europe's energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and then have an extended conversation about how and why Europe doubled down on Fossil fuels during the energy crisis that followed.  

Throughout this week there has been a notable lack of female leaders. By my count just seven of the 99 Presidents or Prime Ministers to address the General Assembly were women.  This is a recurring issue in every UN General Assembly I've covered since 2005. In our second segment today, I discuss the issue of women's political representation with Hibaaq Osman, founder and CEO of Karama a movement working in the Arab Region on ending violence against women and promoting women's political participation. For our first segment, I speak with Pete Ogden, Vice President for Climate and the Environment at the United Nations Foundation. The Climate Ambition Summit convened on Wednesday by Antonio Guterres was the centerpiece of climate diplomacy at UNGA this year. Pete Ogden explains what happened at that summit and how events at the UN and throughout New York this week are helping to shape the outcome of the next major moment in climate diplomacy, COP28, which kicks off in Dubai in late November. The Global Dispatches podcast is teaming up with the United Nations Foundation for a special daily series during the 78th United Nations General Assembly.  Get our newsletter  

Today is Wednesday, September 20th and it was a very busy day at the United Nations. Of all the days this week, today was arguably the most packed with high level consequential meetings. Throughout the day today was the Secretary General's Climate Ambition Summit. We will bring you full coverage of that in tomorrow's episode. Also today, the Security Council held a meeting on Ukraine, which featured Zelenskyy's first time addressing the Security Council in person since Russia's invasion. There were two key meetings on Global health, one on Pandemic Preparedness and Response, the other on Universal Health Coverage. I will be speaking with Kate Dodson Vice President for Global Health at the United Nations Foundation about those meetings as well as a key meeting on Tuberculosis later in the week during our second segment.  Our first segment features Vera Songwe, Chairwoman and Founder of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility and Co-Chair of the High Level Panel on Climate Finance who discusses the crucial topic of Financing for Development.  The Global Dispatches podcast is teaming up with the United Nations Foundation for a special daily series during the 78th United Nations General Assembly.  Get our newsletter